Chapter 9 #2
I watch, mesmerized. I don’t even want to go to the bar to get a drink because that would mean missing a single second of this glorious talent in front of me.
They all mesh together, playing off each other’s energy.
You can tell that they are friends and comfortable with each other.
Tini works a bass guitar, her lip between her teeth in concentration as she listens for cues from the guys.
Ledger is on the guitar to the left, his guitar pick firm in his grip as he plays the chords in a fast rhythm.
My eyes almost can’t keep up. Then, Magnus is behind the microphone, singing with harsh tones in a haunting, rocking melody.
But no matter how much they all look like a real band, Axl dominates the stage even from the back of it.
His sticks pound down onto the drums, the rhythm pulling the entire melody together.
His lips tug at the corners, a cockiness on his face even during the pressure of performing to a live crowd.
His hair swings with his movements, flying in all directions.
And he looks happy. So deeply and authentically happy.
I’m not sure how long I stand there, hollering with the rest of the crowd after every song and instrument solo, but it isn’t nearly long enough.
I lose track of time, completely captivated and unable to move from the mere beauty of them.
I feel the same rush that I got from the race, the excitement vibrating in my skin.
And the more I watch Axl, the more my body craves him.
When they finish the final song, it’s bittersweet.
I could stand here and listen to them all day, but the night is drawing on.
They start to disperse, a few people stopping to speak to them here and there.
I venture to the front, working my way through body after body to get to them, and when I do, I find Axl.
He’s talking to some strawberry blonde, her hand touching his arm, and I see red.
Or green. Something, but the next thing I know, I’m marching up, my teeth gritted together in frustration.
When Axl sees me, his face lights up and, ever the observer, he clocks my jealousy immediately. The cocky bastard has the nerve to smirk at me, an amused taunt on his face even as I close the distance between us.
I roll my eyes. He’s such an asshole.
“Stacey!” He greets me, his attention fully turning to me as I enter the space between him and the girl he’s talking to. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Ledger told me you guys were playing,” I say simply. I look over at the girl and she’s sneering. My lips curve up, both salty and sweet, and I reach my hand out. “Hi, I’m Stacey. His girlfriend.”
She balks. “I—”
“Yeah, I was about to tell you,” Axl adds before his arm moves around me. The motion pulls me closer, our sides touching in a way that leaves me sweating under these stage lights. “She was just complimenting me on my playing.”
“You did great. It was so hot,” I say, supposedly playing a role, but the comment is sincere. His playing was seriously hot.
Axl’s eyes stick to my face and travel to my mouth for the briefest second.
I suddenly feel overheated, his attention on me as potent as ever.
The girl must walk away because I can no longer smell the lemonade scent lingering in the air, but I don’t turn to check.
I’m enraptured by his eyes on me, and I don’t want to miss a single second of it.
“So, you came looking for me today?” he asks, his smile both teasing and curious.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say as a jerk reaction, but then I let the mask fall. “I just… yes, I did. I wanted to see you.”
Axl’s smile is blinding, like I said everything he’s ever wanted to hear and more—even though it was just a tiny truth.
“Do you want to get high with me?” he asks, a wicked grin appearing on his face. “I normally smoke after a gig.”
My brows shoot upwards. “Here?”
“Come on, Little Reckoning. I know you like to live on the wild side.”
I bite my lips at that, feeling goosebumps erupt all over my skin. He’s right about that. I don’t mind a taste of danger, but I’m also afraid of getting caught.
“We’ll go to my car,” he offers. “No one will snitch. It’s Oakson Lake.”
“You’re right,” I say, crossing my arms. “Don’t blame me for being skeptical. The place we grew up in is the complete opposite of this.”
“I know.” He laughs and then takes my hand. His fingers are huge in mine, and my mind flashes back to last night, how they felt inside me. His scent flutters toward me, strong, and I suddenly hope he can’t sense the direction my thoughts have gone. “Come on.”
The inside of his car is comfy, and the dark exterior makes it feel private despite the overhead light he uses to finish rolling the blunt.
I stay quiet, telling myself it’s to help him concentrate on his task, but the truth is I’m trying my best not to spill my scent into his seats.
The electricity in the air is mouthwatering, and I have to hold my breath periodically to keep myself from inhaling as much of it as I want.
He finishes the blunt and lights it, puffing it once before handing it to me. I inhale and a cough escapes me.
“Easy there,” Axl says, but there’s no malice in it. If anything, he’s looking at me with soft eyes, watching over me.
I inhale once more before handing the blunt back. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’ve ever gotten high?”
His lips flatten for a second as he taps the blunt in the ashtray between us, then the side curls up.
“I don’t need to,” he answers.
“Oh?”
“You don’t remember that day, do you?” he asks. “The day you first got high.”
Flames flash behind my eyelids. I never actually saw the fire, but they haunt me sometimes still. I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He chuckles. “Yes, you do. But I don’t think you remember me being there.”
“Tell me,” I say automatically, needing the blank spots of my memory filled in. I can’t believe it. I had no idea Axl was present, that he witnessed whatever happened.
“It’s a short story, to be honest. You asked to borrow a cigarette, I gave it to you, and you threw it to the side after the first hit because you started coughing.”
My brows scrunch. “Huh. That’s kind of anticlimactic.”
“Well, there was some kind of mystery liquid on the floor. When you threw the cigarette, it inferno’d the whole place. I don’t know if it was gasoline or some other weird cleaning product, but we’re really lucky we got out of there.”
“How did we get out of there?”
“I had to throw you over my shoulder.”
A laugh escapes me. “What? I have no recollection of that at all.” I bite my lip. “Thank you… for helping me that day.”
“I didn’t want anything messing with your perfect school record,” he teases, but a tiny part of me thinks his taunt holds some truth. He licks his lips, handing me the blunt again.
Gosh, I don’t even want to think about it.
“Still. If anyone saw you there, things could have been bad. Everyone blamed you, and they didn’t even have proof.
” I swallow roughly. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.
I didn’t even know you were there. I thought I had done something horrible, and I wanted to forget about it. ”
“I probably should have told you sooner,” he responds. He reaches over and turns on the radio, flipping through the stations. When we get to Avril Lavigne’s newest hit, he stops, letting it play.
My entire body fizzles with glee.
“What are you studying at Greenwood?” I ask, changing the subject. “I just realized that I’ve never asked you that.”
He giggles, a sound that I’d like to bottle up for my worst days. “You don’t even want to guess?”
“Well, I’d say music or musical engineering, but Greenwood is limited with its options. There aren’t a lot of creative courses.”
“I would love to take more music classes, but you’re right. Although they don’t lack in the sports department.”
“Seriously. There are way more successful musicians than athletes, I’m sure.”
He grins, watching me with an amused gleam in his eyes. “I’m studying psychology.”
My brows rise. “Really? Why?”
He shrugs. “I think I want to be a counselor. I’m not sure where yet, but I’d like to help. If I had someone after my mother died besides my father, I think the transition into Greenwood would have been way smoother. I was an angry kid.”
“Well, yeah, you just lost your mother and then moved to the worst place on Earth.” I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to say that last part.”
A dark laugh falls from his lips. “You’re right though. That definitely didn’t help things. But the counselors didn’t either. I’d like to be the difference in an angry kid’s life someday. It might make everything seem worth it.”
That makes my heart feel full for some reason, like Axl is honoring the child inside himself in the best way he can. Advocating for him when no one else would. Not even me.
“And let me guess,” he continues before I can say anything. “You wanted to study fashion, but alas, Greenwood doesn’t allow it.”
My lips curve up. “Yeah, but I went with the next best thing. A double major in business and management. Maybe I can use that to get into the fashion world someday.”
“Shit, you have time to do all of that and juggle cheerleading?”
“Well, I don’t really have a social life, so I deal with it just fine.”
His jaw clenches. “You seem to go wherever the wind takes you. I’d say that’s a plentiful social life.”
“Well, I guess… but I don’t really have people to do it with. Not people that I trust to be less-than-perfect in front of.”
I think back to high school, the last time he and I had this conversation.
Nothing has changed since then. I’m still hanging out with the same petty people, still planting on a smile when I’d rather cry.
Despite how optimistic I was when high school came to a close, I’m still in the exact same place, waiting for the moments where I can breach the surface to breathe.
“That has to be lonely, Stacey,” he comments.
I wave him off, the motion robotic. “It’s fine.”
He shakes his head. “Nothing in your life should just be ‘fine.’ You don’t deserve to just be content. You deserve everything and more, including people who understand you.”
This conversation is hitting way too close to home. I look around, trying to find any reason I can to run away, but my body stays locked in place, knowing that I can’t do that.
If I run away again, Axl is done, and I don’t want him to be done. I want anything but that.
Then something pink catches my eye. It’s silk, blush in color, and wrapped around his drumsticks as they lay in the center console between us.
Has it been there the whole time? Why didn’t I notice it?
Because I recognize that pink ribbon. It used to be mine.
“What the hell is that?” I ask a bit more harshly than I mean to.
His eyes flash to it and then widen, sincerely shaken that I had seen the ribbon tied in a wonky bow around the wooden sticks. His response confirms what I thought the second I saw it.
It’s the ribbon I lost the day of the fire. I looked for it for weeks, but ultimately accepted that it probably burned in the flames. But it didn’t. It’s sitting right there, twirled around Axl Ritchie’s most prized possessions.
“When you saw me that day, before the fire…”
“You gave it to me,” he says. “You were giggly and happy, and then you wrapped it around my finger. After all of that, making sure we got away from the fire, I didn’t even realize it was still there until later that night.”
My mouth goes dry. “And you still have it.”
Axl looks at it then. It’s a little bit wilted, but the pink is still pretty as ever. I’m not sure if he ever re-tied it, but it looks like it belongs there, wrapped around the beaten wood with a lovely contrast.
“Yes, I still have it.” He swallows, a shakiness in his voice.
“It’s precious to me. It helps when I need to be centered.
And, it always felt poetic. I’ve always been wrapped around your finger, so when you physically tied it to my ring finger that day…
” He trails off, but his gaze never leaves mine.
Honesty shimmers in them, and it makes me take a sharp breath.
“I kept it as a reminder of that. For how symbolic it was.”
My heart is racing, a steady beat thumping in my chest. I’m not sure what takes over me, but my reluctance suddenly snaps. I lean forward, my eyes traveling to his lips before I grab his shirt and tug him forward.
I could blame it on the weed, or the sentimental item I just discovered, or on the fact that I’m lonely and he’s here, but none of it would be true. The actual reason is because I want to. I always have.
And as his lips savor mine, I realize just how long I’ve been waiting for the courage to go for it.